02-July-2020: Today’s press briefings failed to report the location (i.e., region) of a number of positive cases. It is unclear whether these were from patients in any of the affected regions or in “new regions”
Since 02-July-2020: Age and sex of deceased individuals were not reported anymore either
These omissions will affect the accuracy of some figures presented below
Press briefings failed to report the origin of some cases. These omissions will affect the accuracy of the figures below
COVID-19 is the disease caused by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged from and was first detected in Wuhan, China in November/December 2019.
Through human movement (migration and travel) the virus has spread quickly throughout the World and has infected over 10 million people and killed more than 500,000 as of July 2020.
In response to the outbreak in China, the government of Madagascar suspended flights to and from China on February 10th and then all international flights were suspended as of 20-March-2020.
Nevertheless, COVID 19 was first detected in Madagascar on 20-March-2020 from three individuals with a recent travel history to Europe.
Authorities declared a public health emergency through which confinement measures were set in order to limit movement within and between regions of the Island. Some of these measures have since been relaxed.
Testing is available in the country, mainly for suspected cases. The private Institut Pasteur de Madagascar in Antananarivo acquired the capability to test in January 2020 and has conducted more than 14,000 tests so far. Recently, three additional laboratories acquired the capability for testing. Testing laboratories include Institut pasteur de Madagascar, the Centre d’Infectiologie Charles Merieux, the HJRA hospital, and the Laboratoire d’Analyses Medicales de Madagascar (LA2M). Collectively, the number of tests these laboratories perform every day (5 day moving average) = 857
As of August 09 2020 Madagascar has confirmed 13,086 cases in 21 regions and 148 deaths
Test: The tests used to confirm that a person is infected with the virus is called a RT-PCR (Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction). It allows scientists to detect genetic material that belongs to the virus and a positive test suggests that the person is currently infected with SARS-CoV-2 (and can pass the virus to another person)
Case: A reported individual who obtained a positive result after a molecular test by RT-PCR from one of the approved laboratories
Moving average: The moving average is calculated everyday and consists of the average of the values of an indicator (e.g. cases) during the previous 5 or 7 days. It allows easier evaluation of the overall trend of the indicator and helps prevent one day’s events from the skewing the trend. An example is that testing and reporting may be fluctuate randomly, or be reduced on some days (e.g., weekends)
Positivity rate: This corresponds to the proportion of tests performed that are positive. Per the WHO, positivity rate of around 3-12% is a general benchmark of adequate testing (reference). A high positivity (e.g., greater than 12%) indicates that too few tests are being performed to accurately capture the true number of infections
Case fatality rate: The proportion of confirmed, positive cases that have died of COVID-19 to date
The age and sex of some individuals were not specified during the press briefings and are not presented on this graph
We simulated infection dates (n = 500) using the methods described here.
For model estimates of Rt and cases, the darker shading shows the 50% credible intervals and the lighter shaded ribbon shows the 90% credible intervals.
Forecasts of Rt at low/zero case counts have wide credible intervals and low confidence.
There are a number of limitations and uncertainties in these methods, many of which are reviewed here.